writingMembers' Prosequill

Members' Books & Scripts are listed on our Members' Books page.

 


Winners of the 2010 Writing Contest - Prose

Read winning entries here

 

Prose
Dayna Harpster, 1st place Fiction contest winner
Anita DeWeese, Faye and Mr. Fusser, Fiction contest winner, posted April 2010

Larry Stiles, The Break-in, Fiction contest winner, posted April 2010


Jan Nieman, What’s In a Perfect, Unremarkable Summer Day?, 1st place Nonfiction contest winner, posted July 2010
David Hauenstein, A Moment in Time, Nonfiction contest winner, posted April 2010

Lewis Knickerbocker, March 19, 2003, Nonfiction contest winner, posted April 2010


Member's Prose

“Disclaimer: The author is responsible for content, grammar, punctuation, and style. GCWA does not edit posted prose. Members may provide critique feedback to the author.”

The Descendant an original work by Carrie Graves, read at June's meeting, posted June 2010

Ruben Colon book review of The Fabergé Egg by Robert Upton, posted June 2010

Lew Knickerbocker book review of The Help by Kathryn Stockett, posted May 2010

My Father's boots an original work by Joseph Xavier Martin, posted April 2010

Ruben Colon book review of Stranger by Albert Camus, posted April 2010


The Descendant

Copyright c 2010 By Carrie Graves

The boy looked like all boys do at that age. Summertime gives eleven-years-old boys grimy faces, filthy dungarees, and stringy hair. Jerking limp reins hanging on the plow, the boy clenched his eyes and shook his head like a dog, slinging sweaty, slimy mud clumps everywhere. The stench of unwashed beast and boy melded with the fresh manure, swelling in the humidity, aligning with the stillness, pressing the molecules into a nearly tangible entity. It covered and coated and consumed. He knew the britches'd have to burn, thinking Pa’ll nevlet up on me with sucha stink. The birds vanished some time back. Nothing chattered, hummed or buzzed in the heavy heat. Only gnats swarmed under the bruised clouds and the swirling underground fed creek was flat and toneless. Adam grabbed his nose and blew hard; then spat out the tiny bugs that he had sucked in.

Nearly 100 degrees, the sun burned westerly, so bright that even through his slitted eyes, Adam couldn’t see its outline. The whiteness in its center spawned outwards within the haze of the overcast sky, reflecting and re-reflecting its own brilliance against the encroaching gray-green clouds that pulsed flashes of lightening bolts he couldn’t see yet. The wind freshened as the cloud bank swelled over the crest of the stumpy Appalachian tailbone that defined rural Northeast Alabama, a place somewhere between the sun and the mighty Mississippi.

An ominous presence rumbled its impatient power, drowning out terrestrial sounds. Sucking up the day’s shimmery light in a hot gulp, its bitter gusts thrashed slender pines, grinding and snapping their branches. Adam knew the fullness was nearly upon. He stuck out his tongue, poking through the heaviness, seeking the first cool droplets. Not yet.

Adam wanted to finish the last row before the storm. Even if it wasn’t his fault, Pa would still whip him for not finishing before the rain came. Unconsciously he rubbed his backside where rough scars ridged the thin denim under his back pockets, leaving a slimy rust-dust stain across his rump.

“Haw,” called the boy as he snapped the reins to get the mule moving, but the harried animal only flattened its ears, standing straight still. Tetchy mule, he thought as he pretend kicked its backside. The mule took a step, stopped, and tremblingly tried to back up. Lightening struck a tight copse of pines on the far side of the field, engulfing half the ridge in flames. As thunder cracked sharp as a .30-.30 rifle, Adam ducked to all fours.

The mule brayed, and then bolted, lurching over unforgiving rocks. The plow yanked back the beast, nearly snapping it neck before turning turtle; though the mule continued dragging the dead weight. Rising, Adam unbuckled the straps on his overalls, letting them fall to sway as sharp gusts swatted the metal buckles. He watched another gust hurl a jagged pine branch that snapped several saplings as it ricocheted against the escarpment in to a straight free-fall. It’s gonna fall on ol’mule, thought Adam, and mesmerized, he watched the branch crashed only a foot or so from the plow. The mule seized. Then vanished.

Lordy, dat tree ain’t hit’m,” said muttered Adam.. He snatched up his overall straps and ran. As ice marbles pummeled his bony shoulders, he lost his balance, sliding on the slickened kudzu, the non-indigenous creeper that covered anything to which could attach itself, and generally loathed as The Plant That Ate The South. Concussive thunderclaps continued reverberating through the valley while lightening spider-webbed the sky. Slamming against the boulders lining the mountain, the boy screwed up his eyelids and grinned. Ozone tingled tingled his nose as the nearly pitch sky turned florescent, and cold rain fell.

A warbling whimper flitted into Adam's conscious. Where t’cha go, ol’mule? he thought, pressing his fingertips into the crevices of the rock face, sliding his feet slowly forward. He peered into the shadows of the darkest part of the overhang, squinting at the nothingness. Nowheres t’hide in here, he thought. Then Adam’s scalp suddenly tingled, goose-bumping his skin as a queer electrical tension made his hairs suddenly seem turned back inside and razor sharp.

 *     *    *    *    *

The wind blew through the opening of the natural aqueduct, bone-numbing despite the muggy heat wafting between gusts. Water seemed to flow in-between the cavern's rocks encircling him; its vibrations coursed within him. Azad didn’t remember waking up, and wondered how long he’d been in hibernacula. Awaking from hibernacula was arduous, and though lethargic, his mind neared full consciousness. He was still cold throughout and wouldn’t be able to move until he was well warmed up. Poikilothermic, his body temperature was dependent upon ts external environment. He smelled the red clay, which released its stored energy as late spring warmed the cavern. It interacted with the iron ore, to become the catalyst necessary for Azad's awakening. The storm will pass.

Another fierce gust assaulted him with the odor of a sweaty, terror-filled animal Mule! Azad identified it immediately as hunger cramped his stomach.. He’d not eaten since . . . so long he couldn’t remember. At least not meat that spent its days and nights in healthy, fresh air. The thrashing animal created irregular vibrations that he could feel within his bones, in the displacement of the rank air, and its plaintive cries. It was injured. Let it live.

Azad listened to the layered echos remembering that the subterranean enclosure was inaccessible and ancient. Formed by underlying plate tectonics that enclosed the cave, the peculiar escarpment was composed of interlaced, semi-flat boulders that protected it from the encroachment of passing civilizations. He was safe in his hypogeum and let himself drift into the energy conserving semi-trance that would protect his lidless, iris-less eyes from the searing electrical reflections.

The tempest pushed in a strong scent - human, young, virile and unwashed. A dirt-farmer. A youth, no longer a boy yet not a man, approached the cave. A silhouette eclipsed the entrance. The boy manifested something unexpected, nearly imperceptible. Azad sensed an incongruous aspect. Was the boy a chimera . . . with perhaps not innocuous . . . vagaries? queried Azad internally.

 *    *    *    *    *

The lightning flickered on the plow handle somehow now below him, and Adam quickly clutched the jutting rocks. He refocused his eyes, seeing unsymmetrical, slovenly cut stone steps chiseled into the edges of a subterranean room. The mule's muffled mewl penetrated his concentration.

“Eh, ol’mule. I hears ya,” Adam said softly. Lightening flashed, and he saw the mule was lamed. Its head twisted awkwardly, tongue throbbing as it panted. The mangled plow lay upside down. The boy stepped forward, waiting for the storm's next guiding light. At the next flash the boy faltered. Something gleamed within the light refracted off the damp rocks; something that looked a lot like round, colorless eyes. Adam closed his own eyes and shook his own head dizzy, knowing nothing could shine like that in the black space before him. His heart throbbed inside his chest, pounding in his ears. Adam hadn’t seen any tracks nor any critter bones laying about. Fifteen generations of highlander and hillbilly rose to the surface, and Adam slowly squatted and grasped a fist-sized rock, widening his eyes. Tapping his foot across each uneven, rocky step forward. He could only hear the sound of the rain.Lightening flickered again, and suddenly the boy could see . . . a creature behind the eyes, emaciated, blackened and shriveled. Adam was disconcerted by the undefined recognition of fear wavering along the edges of his thoughts. That ain't of this world.

“What’cha is?” whispered Adam.

“Come ye forth, boy,” commanded a raspy, stunted voice.

Adam stiffened, surprised. He didn’t expect it to be able to talk, not to really answer. It, whatever it was, seemed to find speech difficult, like it had to try out each word. What Adam didn't know was that the transformation elevated the Azad's senses beyond the parameters experienced by humans. Azad could hear and understand human language, having spoken it naturally at one time; but he perceived thoughts and emotions as primary communication. Adam wondered briefly if the Preacher had actually been right and the Devil did come after boys who weren’t anointed.

“I . . . am . . . Azad . . . the Nagawer,” replied the thing, in Adam’s mind.

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        “The Help,” by Kathryn Stockett, is remarkable in that she captures the sound and cadence of Mississippi in the same way that some musical people have perfect pitch. Additionally, "The Help" is as good an example of literary pacing I have ever read. Stockett’s timing, between highs and lows, danger and calm, simply keeps the pages flapping.

        I avoided other reviewers’ problems with dialect since I heard the audio version and did not have to stumble over the oddly spelled words. There were four readers, which is unusual in an audio book, two with perfect black Mississippi accents, and two with perfect white Mississippi accents.  Other reviewers thought that many of the characters were cardboardy. But since I am old enough to remember the attitudes towards civil rights, many of the social aspects attributed to white society strike me as being true. Inflexibility of some of the characters does not make them carboardy but makes them true to the times.

        After finishing this book and learning that more than 50 agents rejected it, and only a new imprint agreed to publish it, I began to wonder what’s wrong with our book industry, especially since more than 425,000 copies have been sold in a year. But then again, this is the same industry that rejected “The Shack,” and dismissed “The Hunt for Red October” as being too technical.

        Too many lattes on the Upper West Side?

Reviewed by Lew Knickerbocker

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The Stranger
By
Albert Camus

        The Stranger was Camus’s first novel. He went on to write other novels and essays. In 1957 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
        POV-Written in first person, the main character is Meursault (no first name) and takes place in Algeria, the country then under French control.
        Meursalt works at a humdrum job, lacks ambition, denies loving his girlfriend, Marie, they have sexual encounters, but he refuses to marry her. He meets and is snared by a member of the demimonde and ends up killing an Arab on a beach. While in prison, he loses Marie, waxes philosophical about his life, bobs along like a cork at the whim of wind and wave. He’s a cipher.
        Cipher: a cipher in fiction is a character without an aim or goal in life, governed by whatever life throws his/her way (Candide is an example). A type of character suitable for authors of existential novels.
        Characterization: fictional characters are given tags, particular identifiers for the reader (tics, quirks, word usage). How much is too much? The adjective “little” is given to Meursault to use over and over, ad nauseam. The word appears at least 30 times in this slim novel (123 pages). That comes out to one “little” every four pages.  
        The Stranger is an interesting story and the main character elicits some empathy, but his endless plodding may quickly undermine any root-for-the-underdog support from many readers.    
        Meursault is convicted of murder and executed by guillotine. End of story.

                                    Existential Novel: A character without purpose in life.
                                                                A cork on the tide of life. 

Reviewed by Ruben Colon

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